Domain Round Table had the usual round of sessions that helped educate both the new and the old time domainer. I had the privilege of moderating two of the sessions. The first had panelists from a number of the new monetization companies and we explored not only what the companies had to offer but also where they thought that the domain monetization industry was headed.
It was a shame that the first session ran out of time (due to delays in kicking off the start of the day) as the panelists only just started to get stuck into the future directions of parking before I had to wind it up. Like all great entrepreneurs the panelists shared openly about possible new financial models, advertising methodologies and touched on monetization of all of a domains traffic.
The second session that I moderated had a number of the more seasoned players in the industry including; Dan Warner (Fabulous), Donnny Simonton (Parked), Don Ham (Hitfarm), Ammar Kubba (TrafficZ) and Ed Russell (NameDrive).
It was really interesting getting the opinions of such an esteemed group about topics as diverse as the decline in earnings per click over the last 12 months, the Microsoft takeover of Yahoo and of course transparency & standards.
My final impression of the Microsoft discussion was that the industry is definitely in a state of flux but there is unlikely to be any change over the next 6 months. Assuming Microsoft is successful in its aspirations then it will take them quite a while to swallow the $38b Yahoo pill.
I think that Ed from NameDrive really summed up the change in the industry. He said that in past conferences the mood was really upbeat and positive but now there seemed to be an atmosphere of fear. I would agree with him on this. I've been saying for quite some time now that domain owners should sell down and portion of their portfolio and secure home base so that they can then enjoy the domaining ride. While there are risks of home being impacted by a downturn in the industry there will be a sense of fear.
One of the things that I appreciated about moderating this session was there was a really lively debate and yes we still all manage to part as friends. I would like to thank all of the panelists for contributing to the sessions that I moderated and thank them for their time and effort.
Although Domain Round Table didn't manage to draw the anticipated numbers I would like to congratulate Jay, Susan and the rest of the organizing team on a job well done. Having organized events like this myself I'm all to aware of the enormous amount of work involved in getting everything together. I hope that you manage to catch some sleep over the next few days!
Like all domain conferences what really makes them is the people that attend them. It's the return on investment of both time and money that makes traveling from Australia well worth while. I really enjoy sitting down with both old and new friends and hear about what they are doing with their domain names, the Internet's most precious and rare commodity. Until next time!
Source: Posted on WhizzBangsBlog by Michael Gilmour -- Reprinted with permission -- April 22, 2008